Is Kenny paying UWP to eat itself?

SLP leader Kenny Anthony: Has his government found the UWP’s Achilles heel?

Now let me try to get this right: the host of a show called Straight Up—which has never denied it’s bent politically—reveals to its largely Red Zone audience his latest acquisition: by hook or crook, his agents have intercepted a letter bearing the name of the harried leader of the United Workers Party: Allen Chastanet. Whoop-dee-dee!

The show host, with obvious glee, goes on to read the missive that he properly confesses (he knows a thing or two about libel, after all!) is without a signature. Which suggests at least two things: Straight Up acquired the correspondence before it had actually been signed. Or that some incompetent troll sent it out unsigned, believing it was enough simply to type Allen Chastanet’s name after the last paragraph. There was also the chance the letter was intended as a diversionary tactic. (Kenny’s boys are good at that!)

There’s another aspect of the story relating to e-mail accounts. Alas, this is an area I know little about, so won’t go there. In any event, none of what I’ve so far written amounts to a hill of beans.

So what if Chastanet, in advance of the election that had resulted in his getting what he prayed for, actually had written the contentious letter to Arsene James? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time a wannabe party king without a country to rule had sought to negotiate his dominance of what he considered safe territory.

But such negotiations must be handled delicately. For starters, they should involve as few co-conspirators (souceurs!) as possible, all of whom must be guaranteed trustworthy. Sounds contradictory? Maybe. But then, tell me one thing in Saint Lucia that does not daily contradict itself! I daresay there is a greater chance of encountering trustworthy individuals in the valley of the shadow of death than among members of an opposition party in the present circumstances of the United Workers Party. (Labour, too, but that’s for another inquiry!)

The UWP atmosphere was quite likely even deadlier at the time the recalled unsigned letter was ostensibly addressed to Arsene James: June, 2013— when both Chastanet and his then party leader were in the process of recruiting their respective back stabbers and sundry Brutuses.

Based on all I’ve been able to gather from the far side of the Rock of Sages pond, Chastanet denied from the get-go he had written the publicized letter. Arsene James, faithful and wily trooper that he’s always been—though highly underrated by all parties—let it be known that he first learned of the letter from inquiring media workers with no demonstrated interest in real issues, among them the local economy, Grynberg, unresolved crime, the IMPACS report, our visa-less cops inter alia.

And yet the unsigned letter continues to compete for public attention with Iwa’s Lettre-La, RCI’s second hottest show. Confirmed cynic that I am, I strongly suspect the government, at a loss how to deliver on its election promises in a fashion that not only Jadia JnPierre recognizes, has hit on this absolutely brilliant divide-and-rule strategy of encouraging the UWP to cannibalize itself out of the elections picture—while at the same time preaching national unity. It certainly looks that way to me.

As if the government’s plan were not already sufficiently successful, we now have the brouhaha surrounding the unveiling of a bronze replica of the UWP’s founding papa and putative “father of the nation.”

By all I’ve been told, the Compton statue about to be unveiled represents the efforts of strictly UWP personnel. And since we should always give jackasses their jackets, let us quickly acknowledge it was no easy feat the UWP’s special committee pulled off, collecting at the worst of times in excess of a million dollars from a community as broke as Saint Lucia’s private sector and other friends of the deceased prime minister.

You’d have thought the King government, having taken delivery of the bronze Compton back in March or April 2011, would’ve rushed to place and unveil the edifice, perchance to erase from the popular mind the notion that in his last days Compton was betrayed by all the King’s men.

Obviously the government’s advisors thought otherwise. Nearly three years later it is the very people who had made Compton’s life a living hell we now are setting out the expensive bronze in his honor.